Carolyn Gregory, 3/14/2016

Current Occupation: Free lance classical music and theatre arts reviewer for STYLUS and community activist. She is currently involved in national work to end use of the Death Penalty in America and in prison reform
Former Occupation: Academic hospital administrator and grant writer
Contact Information: Carolyn Gregory published her second full length book of poetry, "Facing the Music", this year in Florida. She has been involved with a weekly writing group called Jamaica Pond Poets for nineteen years. This year, she has done public readings in the Dire Series at Out of the Blue II Art Gallery, and was a featured poet at the Boston celebrations for National Poetry month 2015 at the Boston Public Library. She also did a featured reading for the monthly "Chapter and Verse" series in Boston. Gregory has published poems and music/theatre reviews in American Poetry Review, Seattle Review, Bellowing Ark, Main Street Rag, Wilderness House Literary Review, Cutthroat and Off the Coast. She was previously nominated for a Pushcart Prize for Poetry and won a Massachusetts Cultural Council Award. Her first full length book, "Open Letters", was published in Boston in 2009.
 

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ONE BRIDGE LEADS TO A BIG SUIT

The little boy in a big suit stares out
the window at bridges going out of town and north.
Floor plans spread out around a long desk.
He's got a file drawer full of ties
for different meetings,
another drawer with diplomas
and a family portrait framed in silver.

The director visits him
followed by an architect and a nurse.
When they leave, he gulps his lunch,
staring out the window
where sailboats roll by.

Twelve hour days, food on the run
dodging traffic, a house in the suburbs,
a pretty wife and baby —
Is there anything more?

The little boy gets frustrated in his cage.
One bridge right, one bridge left,
someone's clock does not match his own.

The tie and suit feel pretty tight sometimes.
One hospital floor leads to another,
one budget turns into three.
How do you get out?